5 Solcast - Episode Five: Meditation, Finding Your Life's Passion and The Role of Breath + Voice

Welcome to episode 5 of the Soulcast. It marks a very special occasion because it's our first guest appearance. Our guest today is one of my best, best friends, best and oldest friends. We grew up on the same street together. We adventured around the forests near our houses together growing up, and just a great guy all around. Welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. What a poetic entrance.

Well, you deserve it, mate. This podcast, I thought we could talk about kind of how we grew up together, lessons we've learned along the way, as well as my friend being, uh, his occupation is actor. So I thought he could talk about the role of breath, the lessons that he's kind of learned from acting in terms of pursuing his lifelong passion I know that you had to make a lot of sacrifices to kind of make that happen. Mm-hmm. So why don't we start with how we know each other, growing up in the same street?

Yeah, we, um, it's been like 18 years now. I still remember the day we first met, but yeah, 18 years ago you moved into the street. I was already living here. And we pretty much hit it off right away.

Um, right away we both, yeah, just clicked really easy.

You were older than me. We didn't go to the same school, but it was every weekend. And you remember the summer holidays, we just spent all of our time together.

And, um, yeah, even during the week after school we'd hang out. Yeah, uh, I'm like you said, I'm 1 year older. So I like to think that I've guided you somewhat with my sage advice.

Yeah, but we for sure helped each other throughout the way.

Um, yeah, we, we have the kind of relationship I think it's important to have with your friends where you can kind of say to them and be honest, super honest about whether it's things in your friendship or maybe I'll comment on something that that I think you're doing well at and praise you for, but also things that maybe I think you shouldn't be doing more of. What do you think?

For sure, yeah. Um, no, we have a very good relationship in that if I need assistance, advice, anything, I can go to you and I know it's not just going to be the run-of-the-mill, "Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, that's really good." It's always honest. There'll always be some— something constructive to come out of it. I think as well that It's a good relationship because it's very honest and I can rely on you when I need to, but when I am not thinking straight or I am in not sound mind, I'm not just going to be coddled and told everything's gonna be okay. It's gonna— it's—

you know, you don't want your close friends to be yes-men. And what I mean by that is you don't want them to blindly support everything you do. Obviously you want friends that are going to support your endeavors, and I'm— I try to be positive with all my friends and encourage them, but I'm also not going to lie and say, uh, yeah bro, uh, that's a good thing that you're doing when it's not. Maybe it's a behavior that you should cut down, or you're not trying hard enough in some area. But I think you need to kind of cultivate that relationship style in a way with your friends that you have.

For sure. And I think from a distance that can seem really disingenuous, you know, it can seem like, well, you're not really friends then. But if anything, for me, then I think it's more, um, I think it's definitely more, um, it's not like all we do is say, no, you shouldn't be doing that, no, you shouldn't be doing this. For the most part, we see eye to eye and we're both very supportive of what both of us do. But if there's ever something where, you know, with a friend that you're not so close with, you might kind of just smile and nod and think, yeah, that's okay. We will always, um, speak our minds around each other. And I think that's a very good and healthy thing to have, um, in your closest friends. Yeah, for sure. Well, enough bro love.

Let's get into your— let's start with the kind of path you've taken with acting. Yeah, it was a— it's a long— has been a long process of many years, but maybe articulate a bit what either started the passion, when you realized you had this passion, and in a more general sense how you overcame that first hurdle of maybe starting to act, because I know there's a lot of stigma around the classic, oh, you want to be an actor? Yeah, um, yeah, nice one, bro. Like, it seems like a bit of a, a fantasy career in a way, and I don't say that in a bad way, but it's like in terms of the percentage of people that to truly make it, uh, it can be very daunting to people that maybe are nervous about starting or committing. So in a general sense, how did you get over those nerves and pursue your passion?

So I started off the traditional route, which was what my parents wanted me to do. As you know, I went to university, I got a degree, did the regular the regular thing, and I worked using my degree for a few years. But the whole time, even when I was at university, in the back of my mind I always wanted to pursue acting. Um, it was always where my passion was. I wouldn't go home and study as much as I should have because I was going home and watching a lot of stuff and reading a lot of acting related things and I just always wanted to do it but it had always been something that was, that's for the people on the screen. Actors are actors and it's this weird outlandish thing that I can't achieve. And it eventually got to the point where it just became stronger and stronger and stronger. I was working a job that I enjoyed but I was, the only thing I was thinking about was acting. And having done bits and pieces, I wanted to focus on it more. So I started a number of years ago now, but I started just with classes and things like that and kind of built up, built up more classes, got a better skillset, eventually got picked up by an agency and it all kind of went from there. So I guess the getting over the stigma of it all, it was never really a big deal for me. I thought just because I cared about it so much, I didn't really care what people thought. I did care about what my parents thought, and I'll touch on that a little bit. But for the most part, people were kind of just yes-men about it, like you said before. Like, I told my friends and a lot of them were like, oh, that's, you know, they just gave me that, oh, that's really great, smiled, and then didn't really talk about it anymore. Like, a lot of people kind of didn't take it so well when I told them that it was what I was pursuing. Um, but you know, for me it was what I really wanted to do and I didn't care. And when I was doing it, I was really happy. So I didn't care that the money wasn't so good, or I didn't care what people thought because I was really, really happy. And up until that point of having, um, up into that point where I wasn't pursuing it, I just felt like I wasn't doing what I was meant to do or doing, um, something productive that I really wanted to do. Um, so that was what really kind of drove me, was just the desire and the process of acting and learning about it was what really kept me going and made me, um, not care about what people— take that leap for sure. Yeah, and I just loved it so much. And I will briefly touch on as well the stigma of it. Um, You know, and I'll chat about parents as well. The stigma, it is what it is. When you're around other actors, the stigma's not, people don't talk about it, they just talk about the work. But when the main thing for me was telling my very traditional parents that's what I wanted to do, initially they thought I was very stupid and that it was a bad idea. But when they saw I was serious about it and when they saw I started getting paid work, when they saw I started getting signed for things, getting good auditions, They slowly came around to it. Took my dad a while, but he is now super supportive. And it's— again, I'll just quickly say this last bit. He was never one of those dads who would say that he was proud of me for doing that kind of thing. It's just not what— he wouldn't say it to me. But I picked him up one day from a bar with his with his friend. He was out drinking, and I— so I picked him up from the bar, and his mate said, "So your dad was telling me, you know, you're doing acting. That's awesome. I think that's really, really good." And I was talking to his friend about it, and Dad jumped in every now and then and said, "Oh, you know, we should get a real job," this and that. So typical of the traditional dad.

Yeah.

And he was very kind of negative. Negative in a joking way, but it was a bit negative, you know. And his friend goes, yeah, you know, I don't know why he's acting like this. Last 2 hours he was bragging about how proud he is of you for chasing your dreams. And, you know, so that's when I kind of knew that, you know, the people whose opinion I did care about was my parents, my mum, my dad. They'd kind of come around. So they saw that.

That's always good.

They saw that I was happy and I was doing what I wanted to do and I was serious about it. So getting over the stigma that was the kind of, you know.

Yeah, I think the first bit in pursuing any passion that's, let's say, untraditional and doesn't follow the institutional guidelines that the current society prevails in current society, the first bit is the hardest and is the bit where you get the most shit from friends and family and also the the first bit where you're trying to find your feet, it doesn't seem like you're progressing as quick, but all of that is necessary to make mistakes. It's, it's the kind of idea that everyone will shit on you until you find any, some level of success, and then they'll come around and be like, oh, that's so cool, now, now I'll support you, now that it's like safe to kind of support you. And I think it's important for everyone to realize that that happens no matter what you try and pursue creatively, uh, outside of the norm. And it's really important not to let that get to you, for sure, because otherwise you'll never get started. And you have to have this impenetrable bulwark of a mind, in a way. Otherwise, especially now with social media and those things, with outside influences on your creative talents or career, whatever you choose to kind of pursue, if you let other people decide your path, that's just straight up a way to become unhappy in life. I think that the only way you can achieve this idea of success is to analyze what your success is, and your success will be different from Bob down the road's success. You know, his values are going to be different to your values. So kind of taking stock of what you want to achieve in your life, whatever that is, and relentlessly pursuing that to get to your level of success is how you should frame it. And if you've never sat down and analyzed what you actually want, you've just been kind of floating through having decisions made for you, I think it's important to analyze what you want and kind of have a framework of how to get there, and then daily putting in the work for that. So in terms of developing your acting skill, what routines or, or tips and tricks, I guess, would you advise to people that are looking to build a skill that's quite in-depth like acting? Uh, in a more general sense, how did you structure doing the work and the practice? And how did you get into that?

It's a lot of it is there's a lot of crossover between learning any skills, uh, obviously, but acting is obviously very niche. Um, so one thing that I found very useful was I would always, wherever possible in the acting world, in the voice world, in the —just the speech and dialect. Exactly. I always try to surround and have people around me who know much more about it than I did. Um, there are a lot of people who weren't as good as me, but there were even more people who were much, much better than me in every regard—acting, voice, accent, singing. So those were the people when I went to classes were always the ones that I tried to gravitate to. The ones, you know, you'd watch them and you'd be like, wow, they're really, really good. I would always try and kind of learn from them, speak to them, network with them, kind of get their insights on things. Because the thing with acting in the creative kind of industry, and even like business and those kinds of things as well, but especially acting, is that there's no one correct way of doing it. Everyone has their different ways of singing and performing. And so bringing in as much stimulus as you can and seeing how many different ways there are of doing it to kind of see what works for you and add to your technique is really important. Yeah. So I kind of tried to— that was the first thing is I tried to just get as much information in as I could from as many different sources. But it was just routine as well. There is stuff that you just have to put in the work behind the scenes that people will not ever see. Um, but it's about being prepared. Um, in my opinion, the best performers or the best people in whatever field it is are the most prepared. Um, and it gets really easy to let that slip, let the, the foot off the throttle, but you just have to get consistent and realize that even though the work you're doing now might not feel like is making a change. It's making you prepared because you never know when work's going to come. So you have to be prepared for that call to be like, hey, can you get here in an hour for this audition? Or hey, you know, there's an interview in an hour and you have to be ready. You have to be on form, ready to go. So it's a consistency thing. Every single day, some voice exercise. Try to do physical exercise as well to keep The body in shape, keep the mind in shape, and just keeping the blade sharp with acting, doing a lot of reading. You know, I'll do some voice exercises every single day and at least some accent exercises every single day. And I will throughout the days as well pick up books, poetry, you know, whatever it may be, read it, work on it, do character building exercises, and just consistently You know, working on the craft.

Yeah, awesome. I wanted to comment on something there that you mentioned, this idea of learning from people that are better than you. I think some people have a bit of a, an issue with letting their ego in the way. They don't want to admit being wrong. They don't want to admit that perhaps what they're doing is not the best way, whatever that is. So, I think this idea that you can kind of say, okay, I actually— I may know some things, but in terms of the grand scheme of things, when you're first starting out, I don't know anything in a way. And that's a good mindset to carry forward because then you're not closed off to possible lessons. If you make a mistake, that's an option to an opportunity to go, okay, that didn't work that time. What can I do next time to make sure that it does work? And who can I consult to improve in this way? And if you externalize the reason you make the mistake in terms of, oh, I only fucked up that audition because, you know, I didn't sleep well the night before, or I was in a, you know, there's something external to your performance, when you, when your mistake is put on that, you can never change internally to be better. So it's important to realize that and always learn basically whatever you're learning, whether it's acting or whatever else. For sure, it's humility, right?

That's the way I always think of it. You have to be humble. Um, You can always learn more.

Yeah, and even if you become very proficient in your skill, there's always some things you can learn. I'm learning stuff all the time.

100%. You need to go into it with an open mind. And the same thing as well, you know, even I said, you know, those people who weren't as good as me, but I can still learn off of them. They might do something that I could improve on. You just have to be humble and go into it with an open mind and never You walk— you can't walk into a room and think, you know, I'm the best here. You have to really be willing to learn and take in that information and process it and get— become better from it.

Yeah, agreed.

I do have a— I do have a funny story. All right, I, um, So we have to cut that blank space. What are we at? Yeah, 20 minutes. 20 minutes, 3 seconds. I did a, um, I did a casting workshop one time, and basically casting workshops is where big casting directors from all over the country kind of fly in and they kind of, they scout out talent. And so they come in and they, they're called casting workshops, and it's meant to just be like teaching you how to audition better, you know, things like that. Get better in auditions. And but what it really is, is they go to the state, they see if there's any talent that they want to pick up. Um, anyway, so we walked in there and I was, I was pretty nervous. I remember being pretty nervous because it is kind of like an audition and getting in front of big name casters who, who, who cast for massive TV shows, massive movies, those kinds of things. And I did— we kind of got put into an order, and there were people all the way from, uh, 16, like teenagers, all the way up to like 50-year-olds who were in this workshop, right? And basically the way it worked is we would get up in front of the camera, do our thing, sit down, get feedback. That was it really. Um, but it was a networking thing, and it was, it was, it was cool. It was a good kind of experience. Anyway, I was waiting for my turn and the person in front of me was a 16-year-old girl, um, and the person after me was some, you know, one of my friends, like a 20— unimportant. But this 16-year-old girl in front of me got up and I was just like, you know, whatever, she'll do her thing. And she was just like insane. Like, she did this scene and it was crazy and like Everyone was like, wow, like, and gobsmacked. And the casting director was like, wow, that was— the way they did it was like, you know, you do your scene and then the casting director would be like, okay, I'll give you some feedback and, um, you know, do it again with my feedback. And this 16-year-old girl did her scene and the casting director was like, that was perfect. Like, I can't give you any feedback at all. Like, she was like, it was That was incredible. Um, anyway, this girl ended up like getting signed off this, spoke to some people, yada yada, signed with like a pretty good, um, agency afterwards. And I remember getting up and having to follow that, and it was like the most humbling experience of like this 16-year-old girl who like had been acting. She said, you know, oh yeah, I've been acting. She was like really shy. Yeah, I've been acting for like a year and a half, and then she— wow— popped up, just did this insane audition, started like crying, and like it was just crazy. Um, and then I'm like up in front of the camera and I'm like, I have to do, you know, say my name, say my age, and I was just like, I cannot believe I have to first. It was the most like humbling experience of like this little girl popped up, just stole the show, and it was like, well You know, I guess that's how it goes, but yeah, that happens, I guess. Kind of shows how these people are, um, you know, you, you can— just because she'd only been acting for a year and a half and she was like 16 years old, insane actress, you know. And I learned from that.

I guess there are some geniuses out there. Yeah. Uh, I wanted to also bring up, you mentioned about putting in the work behind the scenes. Things where there are technical skills involved, whether that's singing or acting or learning your lines, things like that, where it's an essential part of an audition. Or if you're a— say you're a surgeon, learning the actual skill of, you know, the feeling of sewing up a cut or something like that. When you're practicing those things over and over to the point where they become automatic, then you can bring in this artistic flair, right? Maybe less so in the surgery, bad example perhaps, but in terms of learning your lines, if you know your lines so well that it's impossible for you to forget them because you've put in the work, then you can really take them to a different place and play with them a bit more and let that inner artistic flair come out. So, do you think that's relevant and could you comment on that? Sure.

Learning lines is an interesting thing because there's definitely a balance. Some actors— Anthony Hopkins is one— he swears by learning your lines to the point of being automatic, and then from there you kind of play the scene and you do what you do from there. Some people I know, like Johnny Depp, when he was doing Pirates of the Caribbean, had a fantastic character. Yeah, had an earpiece in and he got fed his lines and he didn't know his lines for the most part. So it's a technique thing and it depends on the actor really. I think the issue with if you learn your lines too much, it becomes rigid and you kind of, you have one way of doing the scene and then you know when your line is, you know, you've practiced it, you've got one way of saying it. So I think if you learn your lines too much, it can become rigid and there's a lack of flexibility. And if your director says, oh, you know what, can we try it like this? It's harder to kind of move and be natural. I am an advocate of kind of that middle ground of you definitely know your lines, however you're not in maybe a couple months' time, I wouldn't be able to recite them again because it takes away that natural feeling. The main thing about it is you want it to be natural.

Yeah, you don't want to be robotic.

Exactly. So you have to stay flexible and stay malleable and able to kind of, if the director's not happy, you have to be able to change it up. And I think if you learn your lines too much, that can be quite difficult to do. And of course, on the flip side to that, if you do the Johnny Depp and you've got the earpiece in, sometimes you just look like you have no idea what you're doing. But I guess that kind of fit Jack Sparrow quite well, you know.

So yeah, that character can kind of get away with being a loosey crazy goose, you know. Yeah, exactly. What about— let's maybe, let's shift gears a little bit. One of the main topics of of this, of the Soulcast, is health and fitness, obviously training, lifting weights. And your path of getting into that world has been a bit interesting. I know you had a bit of a health condition which affected, you know, properly getting into that world. So maybe for people that are having trouble sticking to that or are just interested in in how you first got, you know, properly, now that you're cemented into training regularly and eating properly, and maybe just comment on the struggles you had with that and how you got over them.

Sure. My, I will say, to begin with, my issue was always consistency. Part of it was, I think laziness, um, but yeah, consistency was always my issue. So once I got into— I, I think part of it for me was a, a process of maturation and kind of figuring out that if I want something, I have to be very disciplined and I have to work harder than most people are willing to work. So that was kind of a mental barrier for me to overcome if if I'm gonna do this acting thing, it's super hard. There's tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people who don't make it, and I need to give myself the best chance to do that. So it was kind of a mental barrier that I needed to overcome. But I suppose me getting into fitness, part of it was a, just a general wellbeing thing. Now that I'm into it, I don't have any back pain anymore. I don't get headaches anymore, which is, which is, which is great. Um, but yeah, you did say I had some health issues, um, which to put it short, basically my— I had an autoimmune condition and my body was releasing too many, um, too many hormones that were affecting my metabolism. Basically, my resting heart rate was really, really high. Um, man, I remember when you first showed me your resting heart rate, I was like, holy shit, my resting heart rate was like 120. Yeah, it was crazy. It was like double what it was supposed to be. And so I went to the doctor and he was like, yeah, that's not good. We got it sorted. And it ended up— to put it short— yeah, it ended up taking— just because like we tried some medicines and I was allergic to one of them, and then it went away, and then I relapsed and it came back. So we had the surgery, and that was about a 2-year process where I couldn't really train, um, because my, um the specialist advised that if I was training and it was just putting a lot of strain on my heart and a lot of strain on my body just because my resting heart rate was 120 and I would train and I would be at like 200 beats per minute just after a warmup, you know? So I couldn't train, I was putting too much stress on my heart, but I got back into it. When that all got sorted and it all kind of fell into place quite nicely, I got into a consistent regime. I was eating better. I couldn't really drink anyway because of the medicine that I was taking, so I wasn't drinking much. And, you know, health issues like that, when you don't have the ability to work out and you don't have a choice but to eat well, it makes it pretty easy when you are finally able to do that stuff again. And it makes you realize that you're pretty lucky and you're very fortunate and you don't take it for granted. So finding that regime, yeah, it was a no-brainer. It made me feel better. My physically, I felt better. Mentally, I felt better. Um, and it all kind of just fell into place for me. The eating healthy was part of the requirements of treatment and looking after myself. So it was a no-brainer, um, and it all fell into place.

Yeah, so a couple of things there. You mentioned about your back pain. A lot of people that don't exercise and they don't strengthen the muscles, when you get back pain, it's actually an indication that some area of your body is weak. If you're sitting down all day with your back up against the chair, usually you slouch forward as well, which puts more strain on the lower back. Doing simple deadlifts and just some kind of consistent back exercise where you're tensing the muscle and straightening up, and it, it really goes a long way. Uh, people think, oh, I have back pain, and they just think that that's them for life, uh, when I can say that depending on what back pain it is, some combination of back strengthening exercises as well as stretches that a lot of people don't realize that sometimes weak and tight hamstrings actually can cause back pain in the way that it's all connected there. So depending on what is wrong with you, there, there are ways to mitigate that that you can do yourself. You don't have to have a physio. You can just kind of Google your issues. I'm not saying take the advice of any random webpage, you know, do your research. But if you have a pain, it's, it's quite relatively simple in terms of searching and researching what is causing it, and then exercises that you can do. And as long as, again, you do them consistently, you can fix your pain. And once your back's strong, you It can kind of— your posture can be straight up and you don't get those pains that you're used to. So, just wanted to mention that to people. We were talking earlier about breathing and how important that is for both health and fitness on my end, as well as acting on your end. So, What would you say about breath control? What have you learned and kind of how that impacts maybe your emotional state and how you can bring those certain emotions to the forefront, perhaps if you have an emotional scene or something like that? So why don't you delve into that a bit?

Sure. That was funny. That's why I'm actually on the podcast because you finished your first one. And you sent it to me and asked for feedback on your breathing and your voice. And you're like, hey, that could actually be a good thing for me to come on and talk about. So yeah, the, um, um, well, obviously the breath is our life force, right? Like, that's what keeps us going. Um, and there's a ton of application for breath throughout all walks of life, like you're saying, with fitness and training, the breath is super important. You know, when you're heavy lifting versus when you're stretching, you know, there's differences between the breath, um, with lifting and stretching. And of course, that's the case with, um, performance and acting and singing as well. So the thing I like to talk about with breath, for people to understand the importance of it, is it's the foundation for a lot of— it's a foundation for so much of what we do, not only in performance but obviously in real life and with our speaking and everything. But from an acting perspective, most if not everything is either based on breath and speech, or the physi— the baseline physicality of a character, which is the walk and their kind of posture in the way they hold themselves. Body language. Yeah, exactly. Um, and some examples that I always like to talk about with that are, you think of some of the best characters, their physicality is, is crazy, but their voices are also really crazy as well. Um, so, you know, the cliché one is the Joker, Heath Ledger's Joker. His voice is, is that trademark, and it's one of the reasons why people are so drawn to him. But he's also got that very unique body posture and the way his eyes work and the way he walks and kind of walks around.

The walk is iconic.

Yeah. Um, another good one as well, I've recently been binging, um, Peaky Blinders and Tommy Shelby. His voice. Yeah. Mr. Shelby. Mr. Shelby. Yeah, his, his voice. It's from an acting perspective, when you're building a character, you start with the voice and you start with the, the walk as well. That's a really important thing. So I guess the, the application and the mentality around breath, um, crying is, is the technique stems from breathing. Uh, part of it is A lot, a lot of people— it's easier for girls, but a lot of people will try, will try and draw from a sad memory. Like, it's called— the technique is called 'as if.' So the, the, the— an actor might say, 'Well, I need to think as if my daughter died. I need to think as if my you know, and that, that training is to kind of access that memory and train yourself to feel that emotions as if it's happening. Um, but part of it is, and I think the best way to do it is, is through breath, and you can control your emotions through your breath. Um, so you know when you were a kid and you were crying and you would get that like that kind of that crying? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that is like a very— you can probably even try it. Like, you do it for like 30 seconds to a minute before a scene, and like your eyes start welling up. Like, it's a very, um, powerful technique. And I guess it, it must just be like this, this like primal thing in our brain to like connect the, the tear ducts with that type of breathing. That's an example that I like to use. Um, and then there's, of course, we all know the calming effects of of breathing, you know, you slow, deep, kind of 70-75% lung capacity, and just relax and let that air out has a really calming effect for when you're stretching or when you're cooling down after a workout. Um, we all know the effects of that hard, deep, powerful breath in and that quick, those sharp breaths, how that can raise your heart rate and, and get you going. And another thing I like to talk about with the mentality of breathing is, sure, the listeners have heard of Wim Hof. Wim Hof, excuse me. He's the Iceman. The Iceman. Yeah. His breathing techniques and how he— it's mind over body. He throws himself into these sub-zero freezing temperatures on the back of his breathing and meditation techniques. So it's a super— it's a really, really important thing to kind of grasp. For everyday life, how important breath is for, for, um, you know, everything, and its application is super important. Um, yeah, I guess so.

Sorry, the whim— it's all right, you go.

I was just going to say, I think the main thing for me with breath, and especially voice, which I think we'll touch on a bit, but when you focus on your breath, it keeps you in the moment. And I think that's really important. We get to a point where we just autopilot, but focusing on breath and meditating and just being aware of what you're doing stops you from waking up, getting in your car, going to work, doing your thing, and then coming home and before you know it, the day's over. You know, I think when you have something to focus on, it really does keep you in, keeps you grounded.

Exactly. Yeah, so the, the Wim Hof breathing I think is important, uh, to touch on because it's actually been scientifically shown to reduce inflammation in the body. So if anyone is, is keen on maybe just feeling better overall, accessing those different mind states, just, just YouTube Wim Hof breathing. I know there's a few guided breathing videos that he has on there. Something to try before bed or whenever is a great tool to kind of incorporate in terms of your building your health and fitness. Another comment that I would say about the breath is there are a few little tips that I have for, for breathing, one of which is to Breathe through the nose, but imagine that you're trying to breathe through a hole in your trachea, kind of in the front of your neck. So, if you do that, it's almost instantly noticeable the way that your airway opens up. So, you imagine you're a heavy smoker or something, and you have one of those holes cut out in the middle of your trachea. So, breathing in, trying as if there was a hole there. Is a great mental cue for opening up the airways there. You feel the difference? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that's a great tool to do. Another one is to mew, and mewing is the concept of placing your tongue completely on the roof of your mouth and pushing up, almost like you're supporting the inside of your head there. And if you're raising the entire level of your tongue even right at the back, to push up against the roof of your mouth. What I find is that when you do that, the breathing through your nose becomes clearer in a way. There's less air escaping down through the mouth that way. And try doing that in your next cardio session. I find I can breathe for longer, uh, and I get less puffed doing that, and it feels, feels more natural. Like, obviously obviously the longer you can push that and only breathing through your nose, when you do eventually get so tired that you have to breathe through your mouth, that's almost like a, a second level of oxygen intake. So if you force yourself to only breathe through the nose, that, that gets more optimized, uh, and I think it helps for cardio activities. Another point is to conceptualize breathing as a less of a, less of a, like a nose, mouth, and throat thing, which we, we tend to believe that because that's where the air is coming in, that's where the, the breathing is done. But it's actually pretty much all your diaphragm, uh, your intercostal muscles, your ribs, that expansion of the rib cage, and then the the release as well. So, so really intellectualizing that as that's where your breath is coming from, that kind of full body expansion of the abdomen and your lungs, and really focusing on trying to expand your rib cage and increase the volume of the lungs. That's, that's where the movement of the breath comes from. So consciously shifting your kind of breathing consciousness in a way to that area of the body, I think is important as well. And obviously the more that you practice at it, the more you are conscious of it, the more it becomes an unconscious thing. And you're gonna see improvements to your breath, you're gonna see improvements to your cardio capacity. The other thing is when you breathe like that is that your, your speaking voice is gonna be a lot more projected. You can speak from the stomach really loudly like I am now and it kind of resonates a bit more. But then you can also talk up high and it's, it's less, it's got less oomph. And maybe you can comment on that difference and, and how that relates to acting and, and if you've noticed that as well.

Sure. That is something else I wanted to talk about was voice. I think when you control the breath the next thing to kind of work on, or the natural step from that, is, is voice. And it's super important. It's one of the most underutilized things, I will say, is our voice. And a lot of people don't realize it. I think from a performance perspective, early on, a lot of the advice I was given is get into voice training, and you don't know why until you start doing it. But it's— my voice 2 years ago was terrible. It's still not great, but I'm getting better and I'm still working on it. But it's likened to an athlete works out in the gym. A performer has to work out their voice. It's bread and butter stuff. The, the— but for me, it's been such an important thing for life as well. Um, we don't realize it, but I think it's one of those intangible things that— well, it definitely is. It's one of those intangible things that draw us to people, you know, when— yeah, with, with girls or just people in general, when, you know, the— you know, I just, I just like him. I don't know why, I just like him. I think voice is, um, definitely part of that. It's one of those, those, again, like those deep things in our head that just draws us to people. It's—

yeah, well, it's, it's like, it's a, it's a basic indicator of testosterone levels as well, in a way. Like, not consciously, but in general, the guys that have the higher testosterone are more masculine they tend to have deeper voices. That's just the effect of testosterone levels on the vocal strings, the vocal cords. So whether or not everyone's conceptualizing it, in general, it's more attractive for a man to have the deeper gravelly voice like this. And then girls, obviously, the more feminine higher voice. So they're both kind of sexually— sexual characteristics in a way that maybe you're not conscious of. So, taking steps to improve your voice in a way and being conscious of that is a great way to become more attractive just in general to people. If you're a confident public speaker and you have the control of your voice, that's going to go a long way in improving your career prospects, many, many other things that— and the voice isn't really talked about in that way. Definitely good to think about in that sense.

I don't even think as well, I don't even think it's as much— obviously depth of voice, and, and for ladies, the, the kind of height of their voice is, is quite important. But I think it's to do with like that full, that full, um, sounding voice, um, which is, which is what a lot— I'd say 90% of people can work on. I especially since having started it. It's just something now that I pick up on a lot. But you see it all the time with people who just, they might have a deep voice, but they're very, you know, they talk on their throat and they're quite, you know, they're quite lazy with it. And it, to me, it's, it's like a, um, it's just one of those things that needs to be incorporated into, um, your, your life. You know, when you are confident, you look people in the eyes, you have a strong a good projected voice, you're not lazy with the way you sound and you enunciate and you give every word its time and its value when you're speaking. I think it's such an important thing professionally. I think it's such an important thing personally. And multiple people could— it's not even unless you're glaringly terrible sounding with your voice, it's just an awareness thing. Of, you know, you stand tall, you look people in the eyes, and adding on to that, you don't talk with your throat. Imagine— the best way I can think of it is imagine the sound touching the back of your teeth, or imagine you're a cartoon with a big speech bubble out in front of you when you're talking. There's a big speech bubble out in front of you, project your voice forward, and it's a mindfulness thing. You, you're, you're aware of it, and it just becomes eventually part of The way you sound and the way you talk.

Yeah, it becomes automatic once you focus on it and commit it to memory. Same with the breathing thing, really, I guess. Another thing about the breath that I think I should mention was its role in meditation. The simplest act of meditation that I would recommend to anyone would be to just bring your awareness to the breath. And what that means is to feel the breath come in and out, the coolness as it's coming in and the feeling when it's leaving you. And that simple act alone of, of bringing your awareness and attention to the breath is meditation. When you have thoughts pop into your mind that take you away from the breath, just come back to the notion of the breath. This is the simplest way of meditation that I recommend to anyone kind of starting getting their feet wet in the world of meditation, is to sit in a comfortable position, think about how the breath feels think about really bringing it deep into your body, thinking about bringing oxygen into all areas of your body. And if you get taken away from being conscious of the breath, which will happen, happens to everyone, thoughts will pop up into your mind and try and take you down the rabbit hole of, of that thought, whether that's a thought about work and what you need to do next, or just a negative thought about something that's happened to you. Whenever you find yourself following the thought down, just go, "Oh, you nearly got me. Coming back. Boom. I'm thinking about the breath again. Deep breaths." But, and also, the other thing is not to chastise yourself, be like, "Ah, damn it, I lost track of the breath again." You know, the thoughts that come in are very powerful in trying to pull your attention away, but this is a skill that if you are consistent again, and even 10 minutes a day, like anyone can fit 10 minutes a day in. And there's that classic thing of if you think you're too busy for meditation, that's when you need to meditate. So Just sitting down, being aware of the breath, being aware of the feeling coming into your body and delivering oxygen everywhere that it needs is a great way to calm yourself down and kind of get into the world of meditation. It's accessible anywhere. You don't need any special meditation music or chants or things. Uh, so if you're interested in that try that out. Um, otherwise, this has been a great episode. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I want to thank my friend for coming on the podcast. I'm sure, uh, he'll be back again. Um, thanks for coming. Not at all, thanks for having me. All right, that'll do us for episode 5. Um, see you next time.